THE happy juxta-positioning of Thelma Edwards’s exposition on the joy of expletives with Alan A Ford's “Sour taste from the Sugar Tax” (Letters, April 13), brings to mind another lady, a good friend, fragrant and unimpeachable, who will occasionally vent her exasperation with a quietly forceful “Sugar!”
I don’t take sugar any longer.
R Russell Smith,
96 Milton Road,
Kilbirnie.
YOUR correspondent, Thelma Edwards, in agreeing with columnist Mark Smith, states that swearing can be good for you and I can appreciate these sentiments. What I find difficult to understand is the use of asterisks in the place of letters in the reporting of attributed statements; in words such as s*** and d***head. This is a practice adopted by the media presumably to avoid causing offence to readers of a delicate disposition. And yet the words “Jesus” and “Christ” are frequently used, either singly or in combination, in news reports and even in headlines; words which, when used out of context, are offensive to Christians. Why is there this discrepancy in sensitivities?
David Waters,
187 Carlisle Road,
Kirkmuirhill,
South Lanarkshire.
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